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The Daily Verse
To make The Wise Owl more dynamic, we have introduced The Daily Verse, a segment where we upload poetry all days of the week. Just send in a poem to editor@thewiseowl.art
September 2026
Theme: Stories of Passage
Tuesday, 29 September 2026
Through a Darker Night
By Toolika Rani
The wind has whistled its music through the woods,
The moon has shown through the clouds,
The river has drenched the pebble in its path,
The sands have shifted in the moonlit night,
The tide has touched the high watermark,
And the ocean is calm again,
The moon- a quiet silhouette in its waters;
The woods have gone to sleep.
In the overbearing tranquility of the night,
A lone star awakens quietly,
Looking at itself with a dumb surprise
As if a discovery beholds its sight.
There is none looking up from the earth at it.
The tide must have eaten all...
Then, why do I survive?
The universe answers with a deeper silence.
You are to see a darker night.
And wonder again, "then, why do I survive?"
Till the light awakens in you,
Till you become the guiding light.
About the Author
Squadron Leader (Dr) Toolika Rani is an ex-Indian Air Force Officer, Mountaineer (Everest Climber), Motivational Speaker (thrice TEDx), Bi-lingual poet, and Assistant Professor of History. She has authored ten books i.e Beyond That Wall: Redemption on Everest, Sherpas of Solukhumbu, English poetry books tilted A Wild Flower, The Song of the Sky, Thus Sang the Bluebirds, and A Stray Cloud and two Hindi poetry books. She has edited an International Anthology on Himalaya- The Mountain was Abuzz.
Monday, 28th September 2026
Hullabaloo in the Houseboats
By Santosh Bakaya
She recalls that birch tree, a perennial presence in her youth , some tangled evergreens curled up like comatose baby bears, the golden oriole trilling from the tree, and her handsome partner bursting into a Kashmiri love song.
The high dome of clouds covers her, she drifts into deep sleep, feeling snug .
Granny is back in Kashmir , at her window watching the houseboats, ears riveted to the hullaballoo in the houseboats.
The ambient sounds , squawks, clucks , bleating of goats, and cackling of hens collide with the hurling of raucous
endearments of the house boat women , bantering, back - slapping bonhomie , and high pitch , low pitch notes. Ah!
Scrunched eyes , she traces the contours of those memories left behind . Nostalgia spurts as she imagines
herself Communing with the Jhelum . Her face glows with remembrance, touched by the soft fragrance of of yesteryears.
About the Author
Santosh Bakaya is a Ph.D., a poet, essayist, novelist, biographer, Tedx speaker and has authored as many as twenty-three books across different genres. She is the Winner of Reuel International Award for poetry [2014] and Setu Award for her stellar contribution to world literature [2018]. She has been acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad of Bapu. Her biography on Martin Luther King Jr. Only in Darkness can you see the Stars has also been critically acclaimed. Her latest book is Runcible Spoons and Pea-green Boats. She pens a weekly column called Morning Meanderings in Learning and Creativity. Com.
Friday, 25th September 2026
Foreigner
By Giuliana Ravaglia
Still barefoot, searching for roots
steps over steps
mending the water of the wells
in the clear air of the golden sun
and sinking again, waving lanterns
in the uncertain wandering that creeps impatiently
among ancient bivouacs of sovereign roles
and feeling like a foreigner amid fearless embraces
lost in time as the moon wanes
About the Author
Giuliana Ravaglia was born in the province of Bologna (Italy), is a former primary school teacher and has a great love for poetry, especially haiku. His poems have been published on websites and online magazines: Otata, Troutswirl, ESUJ-H, Asahi Haikuist Network, The Mainichi, Scarlet Dragonfly Journal, Haikuuniverse, Cold Moon Journal, Akita International Haiku Network, The Bamboo Hut, Take 5ive, Haiku Corner, Memoirs of a Geisha, HaikuNetra, Haiku World, Failed Haiku among others. he received Honorable mention in Haiku EuroTop 100
Thursday, 24th September 2026
By the Baltic Bay
By Abha Das Sarma
I recount-
a landscape of seventy years.
Young as we were then
above good and bad,
the childhood I knew lay side by side
with the quiet and the buzz around.
The books and the playground,
a feeling of "must" in the expanse of this world
was late to come.
And when it did, taking a volatile turn
through its bumpy greens and sandy tracks,
it came revoltingly changed.
I wondered, could the reflection be an enemy?
The heart learned,
the mind trained
to listen to much love-
that which was,
that which did not travel but lay quiet,
side by side with what must gather dust.
In a life without makeup.
About the Author
Abha Das Sarma lives in Bengaluru, India. An engineer and management consultant by profession, writing is what makes her happy and fulfilled. Her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry X Hunger and elsewhere. She has also contributed to several anthologies, Pixie Dust & All Things Magical and Soul Spaces: Poems on Cities, Towns & Villages, among others.
Wednesday, 23rd September 2026
Displaced
By Nidhi Rana
My suitcase rests behind the door and my coat on a bronze hook,
Two of the few things to comfort me in this strange, new place.
The air carries another family’s laughter,
Caught in the curtains, heavy with decades I did not witness.
Careful along the thresholds, I roam like a ghost in a housewhere each mug in the kitchen cupboard belongs to a memory,
I have not been a part of,
A history I am supposed to own.
He sleeps beside me, anchored deep within these walls,It is his place, after all.
And I drift just above the mattress, unmoored.
He calls it our house, unaware thatA shelter is not a home.
One quiet afternoon, I try to rearrange the books,
hoping to leave a mark, a shadow, a footprint,
but the books absorb my imprints and remain entirely his.
Tears hover at the edge of this displacementWhen I try to smell the spices in the small ceramic pots
On the kitchen shelf,
They looked exactly like my mother’s,
But they are not! I don’t belong here!!
About the Author
Dr. Nidhi Rana is an Assistant Professor of English in Chandigarh. In August 2021, she received the State Award from the UT Chandigarh Administration for her meritorious services. She has collaborated extensively with the Administration across various platforms, which includes editing two commissioned coffee table books. A published author, she has penned two books of poetry titled ‘Of Love, Longing and Other Poems’ (August 2023) and ‘My Maverick Muse’ (May 2025). Her poetry has appeared widely in literary magazines and anthologies. She’s currently working on her third book which is an imaginative venture into the world of children’s literature.
Tuesday, 22nd September 2026
Passages
By Belinda Behne
Swimming through the darkness
running away from home
for survival, revival
Fleeing violence, lovelessness
fleeing for my life
Diving
deep enough to hear the whales
I dream of children
flying kites, laughing on the beach
running with full limbs
through the olive groves
I dream they are my children
with mouths full of figs
Surfacing
the waves lift me and spit me out
onto the white hot sand
I'm covered in blood
Am I dying?
Or am I still being born?
About the Author
Belinda Behne grew up in the midwest, but she has spent most of her adult life in the vibrant culture of New York City. Her first career, as a teacher of special education, led her to the love of art, literature and theatre. She has pursued her passions of acting, writing poetry and performing professional voice-overs for more than three decades. She currently lives on the edge of a salt marsh where life continues to inspire her in new ways. Her poems can be found in LEAF, The Wise Owl, Cold Moon, Folk Ku, Enchanted Garden, Shadow Pond and Drifting Sands.
Monday, 21st September 2026
Self-Possession
By Neera Kashyap
She wove in colours of black and white
choosing yarn sometimes light and fine,
strands interweaving in feathered flexibility;
sometimes firm and muscular, corded rope;
strong-soft, steel-fluff, bone-marrow.
She wove, never once examining her weavebut harking to its creak through forest trees.
When done, she donned its wings
flew through green canopies into the sky.
A hornbill, her curved yellow bill
pointing up in prehistoric flight;
soaring the skies steadilytill human existence a dim memory
of cruelty and injustice;
of endurance and resistance;
of futility,
of nullity.
Of forgetting
in the fullness
of freedom.
About the Author
Neera Kashyap has published a book for young adults (Daring to Dream, Rupa & Co.) and contributed to several prize-winning children’s anthologies (Children’s Book Trust). Her poems, short stories, book reviews and essays have appeared in several national and international literary journals and anthologies. Her debut collections of poetry (The Art of Unboxing, Red River) and short fiction (Cracks in the Wall, Niyogi Books) were both published end July 2025.
Friday, 18th September 2026
The Unswallowed Threshold
By Parminder Singh 'Aziz'
We learned the architecture of leaving by its dry taste,
the heavy latch of doors that swing only outward,
dragging behind us the sediment of rooms we could not keep.
In the station underpass, the cold air gathers like wet wool,
smelling of rusted grease and ancient, unspent rain.
Every corridor is an ache made of lime and masonry,
an insistence that feet move forward while the chest lags behind.
Then comes the turnstile's click—a final, metal tooth—
and with it, the truth lodged stubborn in the throat,
a calcified bolus of grief and unsaid names,
too jagged to swallow down, too dense to cough into the wind.
We carry these shut gates behind our teeth,
an inedible knot of what was surrendered at the border:
the key we forgot to return, the blue dusk on the sill,
the sudden silence after the engine turns cold.
You cross over not because the far side is kinder,
but because the narrow hallway refuses to let you sleep.
So you walk into the raw, unmapped weather ahead,
feeling the hard weight of every closed boundary
scrape against your pulse with every breath you draw.
About the Author
Parminder Singh ‘Aziz’, Assistant Professor of English at Dev Samaj College for Women, Chandigarh, is an IT-professional-turned-educator. A multilingual poet, translator, and doctoral scholar of digital Punjabiyat, he authored Echoes of Us: Poems of Love and Friendship (2025), and received the Jathedar G. S. Tohra Award (2016) for literary translation. His Punjabi poetry book titled Ibadatnama (2026) won an award of grant from Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi. He serves as a review panellist for The Wise Owl magazine.
Thursday, 17th September 2026
Alibaug Village Well
By Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca
Just a few steps from the house
the village well sat as comfortable as an old armchair.
Walking hand in hand the bucket swinging between us
my cousin full of fun and mischief, and I,
on the short distance to fetch water
to be stored for our household needs.
There were other buckets swinging from the hips of women
sarees tightly wound around their shapely frames
turning heads to gossip with their companions.
Our bucket enters the well depths
a big splash brings forth a cheer
it reaches the top in rough jerks and bumps.
There are no wells in my city
Water flows from the faucet, a fancy word for tap.
My cousin has passed on
I met him more than a decade ago
We were young cousins once more
The living room transformed into a well
The bucket swinging in our imagination.
Poet's Note: Alibaug, also spelled Alibag was a small village on the Konkan coast of India. According to legend, the Bene Israel Jews landed there via a shipwreck. When I was very young, there was no electricity or running water in the village. My uncle owned a grain mill in Alibaug, and I enjoyed many childhood holidays with my mother’s sister and my cousins. I miss those days and my poem recounts the memory and the contrast of where I am now.
About the Author
Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca was born and raised in a Bene Israel Indian Jewish family in Mumbai. She is the author of two books of poems, 'Family Sunday and other poems', and ‘Light of The Sabbath’. Recently, she authored ‘Nissim Ezekiel: Poet & Father’ in commemoration of her father, Nissim Ezekiel’s 100th birthday. Her teaching career spanned over four decades, and she has taught English in Indian colleges and International schools in India, and English French and Spanish in Canada.
Wednesday, 16th September 2026
Tears of Years
By Sreekala Sivasankaran
Shanthechi came quietly, her hands warm with oil
She anointed my hair, massaged my tired feet
I saw her wiping tears, silently
Why the tears? I wondered
Your feet are like Amma's, she said, her voice a whisper
The memory of years flooded her eyes, and she looked away
She made rice and parippu curry with butter, the aroma filled the air
There's no pappadam, she said, a small apology
And wiped her tears again, trying to hide her face
I saw the cracks in her smile, the pain she tried to erase
When I lost my child in my womb, I cried aloud for years
A raw, animal sound that echoed through my hollow soul
Why do we cry? Is it to release the pain? A rite of passage?
To remind ourselves that we still feel, we still breathe?
Shanthechi's tears, my own; they merge and flow
A river of tears that won't dry up
We cry for what's lost,
For the memories that haunt,
for the love that's stillborn
About the Author
Dr. Sreekala Sivasankaran is a poet, author, scholar, essayist and translator based in Kottayam, Kerala. Formerly, she was an Associate Professor at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi and a fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Teenmurti, New Delhi. She has taught in various institutions, including Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur. Her books of poetry include "Samayathinte Manaltharikal" (Malayalam), " Veedu Thirike Ethunnu" (Malayalam), "You Walk with Me" (English ), "Dream of the Butterflies" (English ) and "Stranded" (English) and stories, "Pink Mothers and the White Monk", "Two Stories" and "Amaltas Spring". She has also written a pocket book of haikus in Hebrew-English. Her latest work is a collection of essays in Malayalam, "Poonthottangal Naam Sancharikkumbol" . She is co-editor of "Women Write Women's Right - One Hundred Poems"
About the Author
Steliana Cristina Voicu lives in Ploieşti, Romania and loves painting, poetry, Japanese culture, photography and astronomy. Her haiku, tanka, haiga, poetry, short-prose have been publishedmworldwide, including The Wise Owl-The Daily Verse, Spillwords, Asahi Haikuist Network, The Mainichi, Under the Bashō, cattails, Chrysanthemum and others. She is founder and editor of Enchanted Garden Haiku Journal-Romania.
Monday, 14th September 2026
South Gariahat Road
By Subhransu Maitra
It seems odd, utterly disproportionate too,
that a cuckoo’s dogged choir on a summer afternoon,
so familiar, so predictable,
so often embedded in the bustling street scene,
should still assail and forge
a parched declining greying afternoon into
a floral portal opening into
Iman Bhupali evening raga,
river, water and shores.
In some other part of the city,
You too have sometimes come by this portal
and coming, drifted through it
and leaving the harsh noise and traffic behind,
journeyed into the enchanted
evening raga land
--so near yet so immensely remote-
sung into an intense momentary
state of being and performed
using murmuring notes
by the Ganga and her teeming shores.
About the Author
Subhransu Maitra is a familiar figure as a translator of Bengali classic fiction and verse into English. He is also a poet who has published two books of verse, namely, When My Mother Sang and The Dark Harvest.
Friday, 11th September 2026
Removal
By Concetta Pipia
You were walking to the bus stop, coffee still hot
in your hand, running through the day ahead,
when they came. No judge said your name first.
No paper you remember signing led to this.
They put you on a plane you didn't choose,
to a country you've never seen.
Somewhere, your wife is still holding
the other half of the bed, still setting
two plates before she remembers.
You keep checking your pockets for something
that would prove where you're from,
as if a card could argue with a country
that has already decided you don't belong to it.
You call the number that used to be home.
No one answers.
About the Author
Concetta Pipia, born and raised in New York City, writes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and prose that linger in the spaces between memory and imagination, capturing the quiet pulse of human experience. Her work has appeared in international anthologies and literary magazines, including "The Raven’s Perch," (2023), "The Wise Owl," (2023), "The Wise Owl’s Daily Verses," (2024, 2025), "The Suffolk County Poetry Review," (2024, 2025), among others.. A graduate of Parsons, Touro University School of Law, and the University of Phoenix, she is also a certified well-life coach, blending insight and artistry in her writing and practice.
Thursday, 10th September 2026
Evening pooja
louder than the gong
silences in between
snow tipped mountains
even the winds
pause to pray
her stories
begin without ending
looping history
About the Author
Kavita Ratna is a children's rights activist, poet and a theatre enthusiast. 'Sea Glass' and 'Every peck a rainbow' are her two poetry collections, both published by Red River. Her poems have appeared in The Kali Project: Invoking the Goddess within, Presence, Asahi Shimbun, Under the Basho, Muse India, The Wise Owl, haikuKATHA, Haiku in Action, the Mamba -Journal of Africa Haiku Network, Black and white haiga, the Cold Moon Journal, Five Fleas Itchy poetry, the Haiku Dialogue, Stardust Haiku, LEAF (Journal of The Daily Haiku), and several others. She was on the Haiku panel at the Glass House Poetry Festival, Bangalore, 2024 and the Mysore Literature Festival, 2024. She is also a Pushcart Prize nominee, 2023 and a Touchstone Award nominee, 2024.
Wednesday, 9th September 2026
Sailed Away
By Alshaad Kara
Born in a land,
Transferred to another,
With no choice and no hope,
You forget the first soil
You were birth in,
Only to grow up somewhere else,
With no remembrance of the past…
Cultural and linguistic endemic creatures
Indirectly imprint your own self,
Making you forget your own traditions.
This story is a mirrored wind,
Of travel and dislocation.
About the Author
Alshaad Kara loves reading and writing poetry
Tuesday, 8th September 2026
Abode
By Tanjila Aktari
I used to think leaving
meant taking nothing with me.
Now I know better.
The window will stay here,
but the light through it
will follow me.
The books will stay on their shelf,
the stones will stay beneath my feet,
the summer will keep happening
without asking where I went.
And you
you will remain
in the strange little places
this town has made inside me.
Maybe home is not a place
we return to.
Maybe it is what leaves with us
without ever saying goodbye.
So I’ll take one last evening,
a little moonlight,
the red of the sky,
and enough of us
to become someone new
About the Author
Tanjila Aktari is a writer from the Dooars, West Bengal, and a postgraduate in English Literature. Her writing emerges from an attentive observation of everyday life, human interactions, and the people she encounters. She keeps journals and writes film reviews, often drawing from these personal records to shape her creative work. Her writing seeks to weave realism with imagination, finding stories in the ordinary. She is also an avid reader.
Monday, 7th September 2026
Jacaranda Tales
By Smitha Vishwanath
I
Days crawl. Winter is coming to its fag end, and Spring is at the threshold
waiting to make an entrance. The Jacaranda tree shows the first signs,
its foliage turning a buttery yellow, shedding all inhibitions and ready to
let go.
II
Here at home, we’ve had our share of winter – melt downs, a sharp coldness
that pierces the heart and a thin layer of ice that covers layers of turbulence
built up over years of being here, alone, away from home. The ice gave way
yesterday. We fell in and risked drowning as we flailed our arms
in a desperate attempt to survive.
III
When we gave up pretending that we were okay, when we reached out
to each other, we hauled ourselves up, still shivering, drained by the effort.
We lay in silence in the dark of the night, warm tears rolling down
our still cold cheeks until sleep came to us.
IV
When we woke up, we saw the spring sun sliding in through the space
between the door and the floor; you snuggled, burying your little head
in my chest and I put my arm over your still delicate frame. And in that
moment, I knew you’d be okay; you made it through another winter
in foreign soils. Unknown to you, your roots had been silently
gaining ground.
VI
Like the Jacaranda trees that unabashedly proclaim their existence,
bare branches brimming with bright mauve blossoms against the blue
Spring sky; carpeting the brown earth with lavender drops in honour of
Summer, making heads turn in awe, I wish you do, too. May these trees
from our homeland remind you to exist, not as a whisper on this land
but to be bold and beautiful and hold your head high.
About the Author
Smitha Vishwanath is a poet, novelist, and artist who began blogging in 2016 after a successful banking career in the Middle East until 2018. Now living in Kenya, she devotes her time to writing and continues to refine her craft through international writing programs. Her poetry has received numerous honours, including Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominations, and appears in leading literary journals worldwide. Her latest release, ‘The Inheritance of Solitude- poems on hurt and healing’ was published on July 15, 2026.
Friday, 4th September 2026
Carrying a former life
By Sabyasachi Roy
Aim small, miss small, they told us back then—
as if identity were just a paper target
you could fold up, stick in your pocket,
and carry through customs without declaring.
Now my hands look like foreign currency.
Spendable, sure, but nobody knows the exchange rate.
The sunlight slides down the kitchen blinds,
eating the shadow of the dish rack, inch by inch,
until the shadows eat each other whole.
They pin another badge on your digital profile: Settled.
Nice term. Like dust after an explosion.
A dog barks three blocks over—
that same sharp, paranoid yelp from the checkpoint—
and for a second, my pulse goes full tactical.
Welcome home, says the automated email.
Right. As if anyone actually gave us directions.
I slice the melon in half.
It bleeds seeds onto the formica,
and I eat the sweet, rotting center
just to remember what didn't survive the trip.
About the Author
Sabyasachi Roy is the author of Writing While the World Burns and Micro Craft for Sentences that Sing, e-books on the craft of writing published by Authors Publish. His poems have appeared in Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review, Singapore Unbound, The Wise Owl, and others. His fiction has been published in Viridine Literary, Inglenook Lit, After the Storm, among several journals. He writes craft essays regularly for Authors Publish.
Thursday, 3rd September 2026
Geography of a Quiet Heart
By Sarada Kuchibhotla
I sit on the bare floor of this room,
where the smell of dry spices and old sweat clings to the walls.
Outside, the dark rain of the forest begins to fall..
the wet earth of the Mullai woods crying out for a touch.
You called me a wife and shut the heavy wooden door,
but my soul is a wild bird that flies directly into the storm.
I do not want your gold or your quiet, hollow nights.
I lay my bruised body down in the dust,
waiting like an empty clay pot at the river’s edge.
Let the rain wash away the names you gave me.
In this small, dark corner of myself,
I am waiting for the great silent traveller
to step through the open window
and claim the wild, unwritten spaces of my heart.
About the Author
Sarada Kuchibhotla is an M.A. graduate from the University of Madras and a former English teacher with nearly 25 years of experience. She began writing at the age of 14 and has since been featured in The Significant Anthology, Umblical Chord: An Anthology for Parents, GloMag, LitStream and Worldwidewriterweb. A recipient of the NaPoWriMo TSL 2026 award, she is an active member of the Destiny Poets International Community, where her poem The Bench at the Mall was recognized as the 158th Poem of the Month.
Wednesday, 2nd September 2026
A Door Ajar
By Ajanta Paul
In the shut, locked
house of mine,
somewhere a door
was kept ajar
through which flowed history
faint whistles of bullets
carving their trajectory
where everything is temporary
the breeze wafts in smells
of silence and waiting
of arrival and departure
the door ajar is an amazing aperture
it is like a chink in your poetry
which allows me entry
into a troubadour's diary
full of mystery and memory.
About the Author
Dr. Ajanta Paul is a widely published poet, short story writer and literary critic. She was the Principal of Women’s Christian College, Kolkata and is currently its Governing Body Secretary. A Pushcart nominee, Ajanta has been published in national and international literary journals and anthologies She has four collections of poems, two collections of short stories, fifty literary reviews (by her), thirty critical reviews and interviews on/with her, two acclaimed books of criticism in addition to numerous academic books and papers.
Tuesday, 1 September 2026
Memories of Home
By Jayshree M Tripathi
Now, I wonder – was I displaced?
Joyful are the memories that mist my eyes.
At five to London - a few friendships
from primary school remain, bless the Internet!
At ten, A Return Passage to India -
bullied at the Convent for my accent,
the oil I loved to pour in my hair!
At seventeen to Delhi University -
the joy and wonder of those halcyon days!
Then followed Rites of Passage.
Journeys and Detours –
to the Land of Morning Calm,
to Suomi, the land of the midnight sun;
to the isthmus between the Americas;
to the island of Serendipity, and then
to the fourth largest island in the world.
Seven years in lands where the Big Five roamed.
I kept Home safely cocooned in my Heart.
Now, though I shuttle between two cities,
Home is tightly bound in my widow’s weed.
About the Author
Jayshree has been a consultant, educator and examiner in English Language and Literature, for the Diploma of the International Baccalaureate Organization. She worked in print media in the late ’70s and ’80s in India. Having lived in diverse cultures for over thirty years with her late husband, a career diplomat in the Indian Civil Service, her short fiction and narrative verse dwell upon journeys through the diaspora, highlighting women’s ‘voices’ and cross-cultural conversations.